I've spent nearly 20 years working across product design, innovation, and brand experience design, fifteen of those years in Asia.

My work includes launching products from zero to market with global teams, leading a 0–1 seating brand while at IDEO, and designing furniture and systems for Herman Miller. I've also delivered flagship retail and product experiences for global technology and sports brands.

Alongside that work, I collected and studied vintage watches.

What stood out were the ideas that never quite made it.

Not because they were wrong, but because the tools of their time weren't ready.

Some of those ideas are still worth completing.

Completing this idea required time inside the manufacturing ecosystem where it could realistically be done.

I partnered with an experienced watch engineer and spent several years working across southern China and Hong Kong, visiting factories, testing manufacturing routes, and building relationships with specialist suppliers capable of sustained mechanical refinement.

The Unicrown system could not be sourced off the shelf.

It required extensive prototyping, repeated sampling, and incremental refinement of engagement, tolerances, and long-term stability.

Many approaches were tested and abandoned.

Progress was slow by design.

Kintao exists because we chose that slower path, and because we're prepared to stand behind the result.